Quick Weekend Whole House Reset in a Day

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Need help with getting your household back on track? You were totally busy and neglected your house and now your home is a mess and you have no clue on how to get it back on track? Don’t worry, I’ve got you covered when it comes to how to get the household back on track after busy times! 

By the time you’re done reading this post you will be able to slay: 

• the overwhelmed by the mess at home 

•  the chaos of the nonfunctional household

• the piles of backlog at home

Let’s get started.

I like to use my cleaning schedule Google sheet for this, List out all cleaning tasks room by room and then tackle it

Why do we need to get households back on track?

We all have been at this place at some point in time when we have had crazy busy times at work or we had some emergencies to attend to or unexpected extra work.

These situations force you to neglect the house and now you are completely lost with no clue to bring things back together to normal; your house and the systems running the household have completely collapsed. 

I totally get you, story of every working woman and working couple.

I have been there many times. My job sometimes puts me in demanding situations where I am spending more time at work and tend to neglect the house and land up in a mess at home. But over the years I have got pro at dealing with this situation and I am sharing here things that help me get the household back on track and I am very sure these will help you too.

In case you are having such a situation at work you should really check out Steps to reset your work-life after busy times.

Tips for Quick Whole House Reset

Before getting into the details of resetting the house and getting things back to normal here are a few tips to keep in mind, to make this process more efficient and less overwhelming.

Tip 1: Pick a day 

I highly recommend picking a day with a set intention to get this done. Planning a day for this makes it more manageable, weekends are ideal.

Tip 2: Start with a good, nutritious breakfast

You have a lot to do today and you both need a lot of energy to deal with it so starting with good fueling will help you long.

Tip 3: Turn on some music or podcast

Resetting your household is a lot of work and not quite fun, putting on some music makes it enjoyable for you and also helps get work done.

Tip 4: No deep Cleaning

Don’t forget the mission here, you just want to get back on track. You are not here for deep cleaning and making things perfect but just to get back functional.

I need to remind to myself very often, as I tend to get in deep cleaning and spend too much time in one area, and have incomplete tasks at the end of the day.

Tip 5: Use the 20/10 Rule

This is very effective to get the most done. Also, this helps to beat the issue discussed above of spending too much time on one area.

Set a timer of 20 minutes for each room or task and make sure to complete the task in the set time. Once done take a 10 min break.

Make sure to break big tasks into small tasks that are doable in 20 min.

Tip 6: Plan to eat out or take away

You will be spending a lot of time and energy restoring your house back to normal. Cooking at home will add to your work and also cause delays.  Hence it will be best either to eat out or get a takeaway.

I sometimes make some extra food day before, so that I don’t have to worry about meals.

Tip 7: Take laundry simultaneously

Before starting with work you can put some laundry for washing and take the rest simultaneously during the work and get through with it.

Before diving into details, I have a post on 10 simple working mom cleaning hacks for a tidy house and Realistic daily and weekly cleaning schedule that you will find helpful to keep the house clean and simplified. I also have a free room-by-room cleaning checklist and cleaning planner to help you build your custom cleaning schedule.

House Reset-Speed Cleaning

Let’s get started with the things that can take you out of the overwhelmed messy house and get your household back to functionality.

1. Start with Brain dumping

You will have hundreds of thoughts running through your mind and all the things that have piled up, right from the grocery, to laundry piles and mess in the living room. 

Let’s accept it we cannot get it all done together so we need to have an action plan.

The best way to handle this is by dumping all your thoughts, I dump all my cleaning chores in this cleaning planner Google sheet room by room if I am planning to do a house reset in a day. If I am planning to do it in parts over a week I do it in the weekly planner by just brain-dumping tasks and selecting a day and it gives me a weekly plan.

Set a timer for 3 minutes and write down all the thoughts that come to your mind, don’t worry about the word, spelling, or whether is it right or wrong, just pour your thoughts out of your brain. 

Once done believe me you will feel so light and relaxed.

If you have more to write, keep going on with it. The timer is just to get you started.

I often keep adding to it later too, as I keep remembering.

This is just to know what all we have at our hand to deal with.

Once this is done just mark the things that are important and urgent, these will be the priority to attend. 

Once your priorities are attended you can start with getting the household back to normal starting with different key areas of the house.

2. Bedroom first 

• Start the house reset by making your bed. 
• Bedrooms are generally not messed up much, as we tend to spend less time there, and getting it done is easy.
• Getting done with at least one area of the house will boost your spirit to get more done.
• But most importantly, I recommend tidying up the bedroom first so, that when you are all tired of the work, you have a comfortable place ready to fall on and rest.

3. Living room

This area is mostly ignored and messed up when you are busy. just go out making the place functional.

• Start with keeping things back in their right place.
• Put all the toys, and random stuff around in a bin or basket, this will quickly make the place clean, you can later spend a little time each day to organize and keep the items off the basket to their right place.
• Fluff and arrange the cushions.
• A quick vacuum or sweep will get all the dust off.
• Give a quick wipe to the surfaces.

4. The kitchen

The kitchen is the key of the household and there are many things to take care of in this area of the house.

• Start by clearing up the counter, and keep loading the dishwasher as you keep finding dirty utensils.
• Keep the appliances and other kitchen tools back in their designated places.
• Go through the fridge and remove any expired or waste food. Many times when we are busy and don’t spend much time cooking, the vegetables tend to rot and contaminate the fridge.
• Give a quick wipe to the hob and chimney.
• Give a good wipe to the counter and cabinets.
• Keep the grocery bags in the pantry and perishable food in the fridge. You can later do the work of filling the pantry.
• Give a quick sweep.
• Run the dishwasher.
• Take out the trash.

5. Bathrooms

The last area of the house to be attended should be the bathroom.

• Remove all the waste items, empty waste bottles, and tubes.
• Keep all the things in the right place.
• Clean the basin and mirror.
• Next clean the bathtub, toilets, and the floor.
• Refill the essentials like soap, buds, and cotton balls.
• Place clean and fresh towels and mats.

Once I am done with bathroom cleaning, I immediately take a bath, that’s the reason I always attend to the bathroom at last.

Now that we are done with all the major things and the house is back to functional, let’s take a few minutes to relax and sip tea in the fresh air and appreciate yourself for the work done.

We still have 2 major things to be done to reset the household back on track and fully-functional

6. Meal planning

Meals are the most important part of our life and running the household. It requires a lot of effort to put up meals for a family every day. To have things running smoothly it is very essential that you plan meals for an entire week, this takes a lot of pressure off your head on a day-to-day basis when you get busy with work and life.

• Start with writing down all the breakfast, lunch, and dinner ideas that come to your mind; in case you find it difficult to come up with something, check out some food recipe websites or Pinterest and get some inspiration.
• You can also have a look at the grocery available with you to come up with some recipes that you can cook by using these groceries in the coming week.
• I like to think of my family’s favorite meals and try to incorporate them into the plan.
• Keep the meal quick and simple.
• Try one-pot recipes,  they are wholesome and easy to make.
• Once your ideas are ready just assign a day to each based on your schedule for the week. I get pretty exhausted by Thursday so I  reserve the easiest recipes for the end of the week.
• I also suggest writing the fruit that you would have each day to the meal plan.

7. Grocery

The last thing that you would want on a busy working week is to find you are missing an ingredient for the recipe or running short on fruits or vegetables.

Based on the meal plan list out the groceries that you will need. 

Once ready you can place the order for the grocery and get them delivered to you while you relax after the long day of resetting the house. 

If ordering groceries is not the option for you, get to the grocery store for the shopping and have dinner at the restaurant on the way back. You really deserve it.

With meal planning and grocery done, your days are gonna run  smooth and peaceful

8. Make your cleaning routine

Once you have your house reset completed, it is best to make a cleaning routine that will help you maintain your house and make cleaning easy to avoid falling into this state again. You can read my post on Realistic daily and weekly cleaning schedule to build your cleaning schedule.

Use a cleaning planner to effectively build a cleaning routine and track your progress. Use the Cleaning Schedule checklist Google sheet for the same, it has 4 types of editable cleaning planner options.

Type 1- One glance cleaning schedule template: it includes a daily cleaning checklist, weekly cleaning checklist, monthly cleaning checklist, quarterly cleaning checklist, annual cleaning checklist, and biannual cleaning checklist.

Type 2 – Room-by-room cleaning schedule template: it is an editable cleaning checklist that you can customize for each room of your house and cleaning chores to make a weekly cleaning planner.

Type 3 – Weekly cleaning planner: Brain dump your cleaning tasks and select a day. it will automatically make your weekly cleaning schedule.

Type 4 – Monthly cleaning planner: Brain dump your cleaning tasks and select a date. It will automatically make your monthly cleaning schedule.

The Last Thing You Need to Know about getting household back on track

Resetting your household and getting back on track can be daunting. But done the right way, it is totally achievable and need not be overwhelming. 

You need to make peace with the mess around and take charge of the situation to make it better, rather than getting into regret of how you landed in the mess. 

Brain dumping will be the best way to start with, followed by quickly tackling the key areas of the house, as per the tips shared above. Additionally, meal planning and getting the grocery available for the coming week is just gonna get your household back on track and totally manageable for the days ahead.

Make sure to reward yourself for resetting your house back on track

The steps and tips shared have always worked for me and I am very sure will work for you too. Now that you know all of these, go yourself and your family out of the chaos of the nonfunctional household.

If you had your household messed up after busy times, it may be quite possible you have the same situation at work too. If so you should really check out Steps to reset your work-life after busy times.

Related posts you will like:

Self care ideas for busy moms

21 Tips for work-life balance while working from home

10 Things for working mom weekend routine

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